


When thy hearts began to beat

by antennapedia



Series: Tyger, Tyger [3]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Babies, F/M, Post-Episode: s08e10 In the Forest of the Night
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-11
Updated: 2016-02-11
Packaged: 2018-05-19 16:39:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5974314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antennapedia/pseuds/antennapedia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Time passes. A child is born.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When thy hearts began to beat

Clara's pregnancy was progressing normally, as far as the Doctor could determine. He had the best of the TARDIS's instruments to back him on this theory, as well as the services of a very nearly human doctor on Spirulacreon VI. Their daughter had two hearts and a breathing system that was a touch more complex than a pure human one was, but she had the normal complement of organs otherwise, not to mention a mean kick. Clara complained that she seemed to know exactly where the bladder was and to enjoy its bounciness.

Clara. Was Clara progressing normally? The Doctor sadly had personal experience with what it felt like to wake up every morning knowing your planet was gone and that you were its only survivor. Clara had borne up as well as he had hoped, which was to say that she still had fits of weeping and fits of unwarranted joy and fits of quiet. As her belly grew, she spent a lot of time swimming in the TARDIS pool, which was allowed exercise. She also spent time reading in the library stretched out on its comfortable couches. She read histories of Earth, which worried him, and histories of the Time War, about which he still could not talk.

The other thing she did was simply rest in his arms while he told her stories of his people. She had become curious about them. They would lie together on one of the library's broad chaises, legs tangled together, his hand on her round belly, and he would tell her about his childhood. He could feel the steady pulse of the infant mind growing within her. He was already feeling the beginnings of an empathic link with his daughter, and this delighted him in ways he tried to share with Clara. She would be a proper Gallifreyan in that respect. Two hearts, mild touch telepathy, an iron constitution. And gestation on the TARDIS meant she had been touched by the vortex. She would be aware of time as he was.

Clara was not entirely reassured by this new. "How much," she said, "of our daughter will be human? How much will be like me?"

"Half of her genes," the Doctor said. "Her personality. Her drive. Her optimism. Her individuality. My people don't feel like this when I commune with them. They like their rules. Their castes. She won't be putting up with that even for an instant."

"I like her already," Clara said. The Doctor smiled. He did too. He'd never got on with his own people. Too many human genes in him, thanks to his mother. Too much of that individuality in him. He'd never liked the uniforms.

When the time left was counted in days instead of weeks, he took them back to Spirulacreon VI and found a midwife, an energetic curious woman who found the minor physical differences in humans to be an interesting challenge instead of a cause for heavy-handed medical machinery. The Doctor let a cottage on the outskirts of the major city, a short hover flight away from a good hospital, and they settled in to wait the last days out in slow time. Clara read and re-read books on breast feeding and infant development. She walked in the cottage garden when weather allowed.

When her water broke, she retreated to the TARDIS and refused to come out. She sat on the floor in her bedroom, back against a wall of books, and panted.

"Here," Clara said. "She's being born on the TARDIS."

"Right," he said. "Okay. She'll be born here."

And she was, after eight hours of labor. Clara swore at him and clutched at his hand and demanded he never leave her, and he swore he would not, and looked down, and saw the crown of his daughter's head emerge, all bloody and miraculous. The child of two lost peoples, washed clean by the midwife and swaddled and set at Clara's breast still wailing in outrage. The Doctor laid his hand on her tiny back and spoke with her, soothed her, reminded her he was here with her as he had been. She quieted, blinked murky eyes at him, and consented to eat.

""Eleanor Oswald Smith," said Clara. "Ellie." Her jaw was set despite the exhaustion on her face.

She had another name, the Doctor knew, a secret name, a name that she would learn to write in Gallifreyan letters and not English ones, but that would come later.

"Ellie," he said, and nodded.


End file.
